


Familiar to You Now

by cassandraoftroy



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Doppelganger, Gen, Jötunn Loki, Loki Has Issues, Mindfuck, Post-Movie(s), Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-11
Updated: 2012-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-14 00:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandraoftroy/pseuds/cassandraoftroy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Left alone in his prison after the events of <i>The Avengers</i>, Loki receives an unexpected visitor - himself. It is not a comfortable visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Familiar to You Now

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cygna_hime/pseuds/Cygna_hime)Cygna_hime for her beta-reading skills; all errors are my own.
> 
> I've been itching to tackle Loki's issues in fic for a while now, but wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to approach him. Inspiration can strike in the unlikeliest places sometimes.

The darkness was his first clue that he was not in his cell; his captivity included no shadows in which to wreathe himself, to hide and plot his escape. For days, he had resented the perpetual intrusion of light, complaining to the empty corridor (they would allow no one close enough to hear his lies, and the guards who brought his meals had their ears stopped with wax) that the brightness disrupted his sleep.

He had not imagined how much he would miss the light until it was gone.

Darkness called to mind that _other place,_ the world far beyond the stars of his childhood, where he had landed after his fall. Where cold, chitinous hands had grasped him, dragged him, thrown him at the feet of the One who had stripped from him any delusions that he still controlled his own fate...

He shook his head, struggling to banish the memory. He wasn't _there_ anymore – or was he? The One had said that they would come for him. He heard a footstep in the darkness not far from where he lay sprawled on the ground – neither the sharp, gritty rock of the _other place_ nor the polished wood and soft rugs of his royal prison – and he pulled himself into a crouch, his body tensing as he stared into the gloom.

Light flared, dazzling his eyes after the inky darkness, and he threw up an arm to protect his head from whatever blows might fall. None did. As his eyes adjusted to the new illumination, he slowly lowered his arm. The witchlight burning above him, clear and white, was intimately familiar to him; it was one of the very first spells he'd learned to cast as a boy. He might have imagined he'd cast it himself, without realizing it, if not for what else the light revealed.

Standing at the edge of the circle of illumination was... himself. Clad in fine fabrics beneath the supple leather of his jerkin, he stood straight and tall but easily, his hands loose and empty at his sides. Glimmers of witchlight reflected from the knives strapped to his arms and the few pieces of jewelry he wore. His hair was cut short, as he had worn it in his youth, and immaculately groomed. The figure looked down at him with unconcealed disdain.

From his position on the ground, the figure seemed even taller than his usual height, towering over him from several paces away. "Who are you?" he heard himself ask.

The other man's face twisted into a sneer. "I am Loki of Asgard," he drawled mockingly, spreading his arms in an expansive gesture as he stepped closer, "and I am burdened with glorious purpose." He snorted. "That was the line, wasn't it? Did you believe it yourself, even for a moment, when you said it?"

"How _dare_ you," he snarled, jabbing an accusatory finger in the direction of the stranger, "come here and impersonate–" The words stuck in his throat, choking him, as he beheld his own pointing hand. It, and the arm below it, was a deep, icy blue, with a tracery of dark swirls and whorls embedded in the flesh. He pulled the hand back, closer to his body, and touched it with his other hand – the same unnatural blue. The skin was cold under his fingers. He raised his eyes to the other figure in protest, in entreaty. "This isn't me."

"You certainly seem to think it is," his fair-skinned shadow observed coolly. "We wouldn't be here otherwise."

He cast his gaze into the featureless darkness beyond the reach of the witchlight. "What is this place? Who _are_ you?"

His other self glared down at him, a single dark eyebrow arched. "Come on. You're smarter than this, even as much of a mess as you are."

Loki shook his head, willing himself to think past the revulsion forcing itself up in his throat, and the hammering near-panic of his heart. _There are only two places I can be,_ he realized. _The only way I could have left my cell in Asgard is if the Chitauri have taken me, to punish for my failure. But the Chitauri are crude and brutal; I would be in the hands of their torturers if they had me, not stranded in the middle of nowhere having a conversation with myself. Which can only mean that I have not left my cell._ His eyes snapped back to the other figure, looming above him an arm's-length away. "None of this is real," he accused.

"Oh, it's very real," his other self remarked, beginning to pace in a half-circle before him. The witchlight followed the figure's movements. "But if you mean that our little chat is not taking place in the physical world, then yes, you're right. You're not quite _that_ powerful, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean?" he snarled, scrambling to get his legs under him. It was bad enough that he was facing his perfect, polished double while in this monstrous form; he could at least do so on his feet.

The other figure waited politely for him to stand before replying. "What do you _think?_ You're a powerful sorcerer. When someone with your magical talents bends the entire force of his will upon a single thought, a single _desire,_ for so long, do you think all that creative potential simply dissipates?" The other man stopped pacing and faced him squarely. "I meant what I said before. I _am_ Loki of Asgard – the Loki that you so desperately wish to be."

"This is absurd," Loki growled in retort. "What need would I have to dream you up? I am Loki of Asgard; I need no substitute." He fixed his gaze on his rival's face, trying to keep his own limbs out of his line of vision.

The humorless smile on his double's face was insufferably smug. "Look at yourself. That's not what you believe, deep down." Loki closed his eyes, refusing to look down at his own body. The other man's voice continued needling him. "They call you Liesmith for a reason. Why shouldn't lies come easily, when you have so much practice telling them to yourself?"

Loki's jaw worked, and his hands – _monstrous hands, not his own flesh_ – clenched into trembling fists. His eyes snapped open. "Is that what you're doing now, lying to me? Is that to be my punishment – to be subject to the same lies I've used to ply others?"

His tormentor shook his head slowly; the expression on his face had taken on a note of pity. It made Loki want to strike him. He wanted no man's pity, much less that of some poor copy of himself. "I have no need of lies, thanks to you. How often have you wished for confidence, for freedom from self-doubt and the need for the approval of others? Your wishing gave them to me, and made me strong enough to face the truth about you."

He didn't bother protesting that he was confident, that he gave nary thought to the opinions of others. This other would only deny it, and accuse him of still greater weaknesses. "And what 'truth' is that?" he sneered.

"That you drink in the acceptance and trust of others like the parched wasteland drinks in rain, and that praise is your only real source of self-worth."

Loki turned his back on the impostor. "For someone who has stolen my shape and appearance, you know _nothing_ of me."

"Don't I?" The other mocked. "Why else would you have sought to conquer a realm of lesser beings, slain them by the dozens, and demanded they kneel at your feet in adulation of your greatness?"

He shrugged, refusing to turn and meet his interrogator's eyes. "I needed a distraction, while Barton stole the materials and prepared his assault on their flying fortress. It was a simple spectacle to draw the attention of Midgard's defenders."

"A 'simple distraction' could have been anything: mass murder, property destruction, illusory monsters. You chose to cast yourself as their overlord. Why?"

He stared out into the darkness beyond the witchlight. _Better to betray a small weakness to protect a larger one._ "That was the Chitauri's bargain; once they had the Tesseract, the realm would belong to me. I had no choice but to cooperate, and it was safer to let them think they had won me over. They jeered at my small ambitions, but it was better to let them mock than make them wonder. The mortals were nothing to me."

His double's next words, soft but insistent, struck him like a blow. "Then why make them kneel?"

He whirled around, muscles taut, teeth bared in a snarl. "Because I _deserve_ their worship! I am a god, and prince among gods! Those insects should be _grateful_ for the chance to grovel at my feet!"

The double seemed unfazed by his aggressive posture, maintaining a relaxed stance with his arms folded loosely in front of his chest. A satisfied smile crept onto his face. "Rather say, you _need_ their worship. Now comes the truth." The copy's eyes swept up and down Loki's form, seeming to stare through his skin to the very bone. "You crave approval – you're wounded by rejection and mistrust – but you can never bring yourself to believe that you deserve any better."

_"Look at me!"_ he cried, gesturing to take in the whole of his monstrous, wicked form. "Who would trust this? Who would accept a Frost Giant?"

Perversely, the copy of Loki smiled more broadly. "See, we draw near the heart of the matter. Because it's not truly your Jotunn heritage at the bottom of this, is it? After all, the only people who know your birth parentage are also the ones who _do_ accept you without question or hesitation: Thor, and Odin and Frigga."

"The Allfather spurned me," Loki protested, resentful of the memory and of being forced to relive it.

The double shook his head. "Odin rejected only your actions. You know that he has always hated war, despite the prevailing culture of Asgard, and that the continued conflict with Jotunheim caused him deep misgivings. But in truth, it wasn't Odin that you were trying to impress by destroying Jotunheim, was it?"

"Of course it was," he snapped. "Who else would I try to win over by saving my adoptive father's life and slaying my birth father, and by ending the war he so hated?"

"You know that you never needed to win the Allfather's regard," his double replied. "It was everyone else – the people of Asgard, the ones who always looked down their noses at you, whispered behind your back about 'treacherous' and 'cowardly' sorcery, the ones whose every glance drew unflattering comparisons between you and your brother – who you sought to show your worth. You wanted to show Thor's friends that their distrust of you was unfounded, that you were worthy to take the throne."

"And it would have worked." Loki heard a tremor in his voice, and hated it. "I would have shown them all that there was nothing of Jotunheim in me, that I was a true prince of Asgard."

"No one else knew of your heritage," the other figure told him gently. "They didn't believe you were of Jotunheim."

He waved away the double's words with a violent gesture. "They knew! On some level, they sensed it. They'd always seen something wrong in me. Only now do I know what it was."

The copy's shoulders sagged a little, and he looked away from Loki. "The way that you were treated had nothing to do with being a Frost Giant."

"Then what?" Loki demanded, spreading his arms wide as if to invite an answer. "What else was there about me that was so horrible, so utterly intolerable, that no one outside my own family ever had a kind word for me, or invited me to share a flagon with them, unless my parents' rank or my brother's friendship demanded it?"

His fair-skinned reflection sighed, and Loki thought he heard sadness in his tone. "You were different," he said simply. "You were quiet, and clever, and a little bit fey. You use magic and misdirection in battle, rather than simply bashing your enemy until one of you breaks. None of these qualities are highly valued in Asgard." The double rolled his eyes, demonstrating the high esteem in which he held that opinion. "And you were the younger brother, the spare to Thor's heir. That made you both deserving of respect and entirely superfluous. People resent that." A shadow flickered across the copy's green eyes, but he shook it away.

"And for that, I deserved years of whispers and mistrust?" he asked. "Did I deserve the scorn and suspicion, the sidelong glances and outright mockery that I endured since I was old enough to understand that the other children didn't want me around?"

Silence stretched between them for several heartbeats. "No," the double said at last. "They were wrong to treat you so. But that means that _you_ were wrong to seek the destruction of an entire world in order to gain their approval."

Loki stared at the ground, a dull and featureless surface given color only by the borrowed brightness of the witchlight above. "The people of Asgard feel nothing but hatred and disgust for the Frost Giants," he observed evenly, "just as they feel only hatred and disgust for me. Who, as it happens, _is_ a Frost Giant. Perhaps they've had the right of it all along."

"It would be easier to think so, wouldn't it?" the double asked sharply. Before Loki could reply, he continued, stepping forward to bring himself closer to Loki. "It would be easier to believe that you had simply failed in your valiant-but-futile struggle against your inner darkness, and are now merely giving the world what it always knew it could expect from you. So much easier than confronting the possibility that you've been hating yourself for no reason all these years."

"I don't–"

"It's useless, Liesmith. Here, inside your own mind, your feelings are all too obvious. Look at me: the Loki Odinson that you so fervently wish to become. Sure of himself. Proud of his skills, not ashamed of them. Content with his position as a prince of Asgard – and confident that he would make a worthy heir, but without feeling the need to prove it. Comfortable in his own skin." He quirked a brow significantly at Loki. "Now look at yourself. You pretend to be all those things, but when the lies are stripped away, this is what remains." Against his will, Loki's eyes were drawn to the icy, whorled flesh he wore. "You've taken all of that disgust and hatred and swallowed it whole, and now it eats away at you from within."

Loki raised his eyes to stare silently at his other self; he had no lies left to defend himself.

"The truly tragic thing," other-Loki began, and his voice softened a touch, laced with the bitterness of regret, "is that you never needed to create me. The Loki you wanted to be was always within your grasp, if only you could have _believed_ instead of _wished._ You would have known that you didn't need to prove yourself, as you were already worthy." His expression closed up again. "And if you had, you would never have fallen from the Bifrost, been tormented by the Chitauri, or murdered so many innocent mortals." His green eyes flashed as he snapped out the last words.

"Since when do the lives of mayflies matter to the people of Asgard?" Loki protested, but weakly. Arguing with himself was rapidly wearing down what little conviction he'd had.

"They mattered to Odin," his shadow-self pointed out ruthlessly. "That was why he took the offensive in the war with the Frost Giants so many years ago, pushing the battle into Jotunheim and away from Midgard. If the lives of mortals had not mattered to him, he would never have found you in that temple." He paused just long enough to give the words weight, then pressed on. "And they matter to Thor. He has taken up the protection of Midgard and its people. Once again, you give more weight to the beliefs of strangers than to those of your own _family."_

"Why shouldn't I?" Loki asked. "My own family is compromised by foolish sentiment – particularly where I am concerned. The opinions of others have no such bias."

"That 'sentiment' wouldn't exist if you didn't deserve their affection," his shadow retorted. "You cast their love away like it's poison, because you've convinced yourself you aren't worthy of wholesome food. That would be bad enough, if you didn't treat their compassion as the same meaningless offal when they extend it to someone else."

"What do you want of me?" Loki demanded, taking a single step toward his duplicate. "Did you come here simply to catalogue my faults, or was there something more you sought from me?"

The shadow-Loki closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, his fingers brushing the bridge of his nose; Loki recognized the gesture as one he used to employ when Thor was being particularly dense. "There is," the shadow told him. "I want you to think on what I've said – honestly, without the lies. And try to believe, instead of simply wishing."

"Will I find myself thus haunted again?" Loki injected as much scorn as possible into his voice; under the circumstances, it made for a rather unimpressive performance.

His other self shrugged. "That's up to you. As long as this version of yourself," he placed a hand on his own chest, "is distinct from what you see yourself to be, I will continue to exist as I am. If you want me to disappear," he smirked, "you have to _become_ me."

* * *

Loki was not aware of the darkness retreating, nor of his shadow-self taking leave of him; he was simply back in his cell, as though he had never left. His fingers dug convulsively into the soft furs of the bed beneath him – which abruptly focused his attention on his hands, and his eyes snapped down to stare at the flesh. It was smooth, and its usual pale-peach hue, lighter where the bones of his knuckles stood out with the tension of his clenched fists. He forced them to relax, lifting his hands and turning them over to examine them further. The only blue was the faint suggestion of veins below the surface of the skin; the only whorls and ridges were those on the pads of his fingers. To all appearances, he was himself again: Loki of Asgard.

_That's not what you believe, deep down._ His double's words rang in his ears. Loki sprang up from the bed and began to pace the length of his prison. He shook his head, trying to rid it of his other self's words – _his lies,_ Loki told himself – but still they buzzed in his mind like hornets trapped in a jar.

Back and forth, he trod the rugs of his cell, trying to chase down arguments to refute the claims of his shadow. He did not mutter to himself, as Thor might have; Loki's thoughts were flying too fast for his mouth to keep pace. Absurdly, he found himself wishing that Thor were with him. Despite the irritation that Thor's continued overtures of brotherly affection caused him, having Thor around meant that there was someone he was _smarter than._ Being thus assured of his intellectual superiority, Loki felt sure that he could conquer the confusing and disturbing claims his shadow-self had made about him.

But Thor did not come. He had likely been forbidden to visit Loki's prison, lest the Liesmith talk him into opening his cage. And his minders, who would not return until it was time for his morning meal, would be deaf to his silver tongue. He was alone.

He kept probing his shadow's arguments like a sore tooth, turning them over and over in his mind, trying to find the flaw he knew must be there. But the more he worried at them, the less certain he became. Sleep evaded him entirely that night, and not because of the lights that burned in his room and the corridor beyond. Doubt gnawed at him, burning away the certainty he had felt since that moment in the Vault when he'd learned the terrible truth that explained all his isolation, his rejection, his scorn.

_The way that you were treated had nothing to do with being a Frost Giant._ He wished his keeper would hurry up and bring his meal, so he would have something to throw. Wooden bowls and metal tankards would strike the wall with a much more satisfying clatter than his pillow and bedclothes.

Morning found him too exhausted for such tantrums. He sat perched on the edge of the bed, head in hands and eyes sunken, and barely noticed the guard deliver his food. There he remained for most of the forenoon hours, his mind racing, until his thoughts started to stumble over one another with fatigue. He let himself topple slowly onto the mattress, praying as his eyes drifted closed that his sleep would be a dreamless one.

**Author's Note:**

> A few days ago, I was listening to The Magician by Bruce Dickinson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQdTekHSgAI), and I started thinking about Loki... and thus was this story born. The title is borrowed from the lyrics:
> 
>  
> 
> _I came through fire, came through water_  
>  _Through the oily serpent's kiss_  
>  _Climbed the mountain, chased the dragon_  
>  _Thrown myself in the abyss_  
>  _Do I make myself familiar to you now?_
> 
>  
> 
> I'm still trying to decide whether to let this piece stand alone or make it the first part of a larger work. I feel like there's definitely more to be told... I don't know. We'll see what happens.  
> 


End file.
